I spent a week there in 1999. It would be hard to find a nicer people than Cubans. While I was there I went rogue and stayed at non-sanctioned places...read that "regular Cuban homes". It was a blast and since I am a Spanish speaker I had some great conversations with regular folk. Finding homes to stay at was like cutting a drug deal on the streets here. Completely illegal and a lot of nervous looking over shoulders before making a deal. Cuban pesos were worthless, but dollars were in super high demand. The way most Cubans were able to survive was with dollars being sent from relatives in the states. But if you didn't have that blessing then you had to do something black market like selling chickens to resort areas, etc etc.
Cubans had a dispensary card that entitled them to certain things in state run stores. Included in the 10-12 basics were tobacco and rum. Most of the time the state stores were out of everything. A family of four was only allotted 8 lbs of rice per month if I remember right. Pretty hard to survive on that.
Prostitution had recently become strictly forbidden; an edict from Castro himself...and it was assumed that any Cuban woman found in the presence of a foreigner was hooking and would be arrested on the spot. $2700 fine (US dollars) or 3 years jail. I had rented a car and was stopped at a police checkpoint; when they saw my wife they just assumed she was Cuban (first wife Mexicana), they were very polite to me but were yelling and screaming at her until they saw her passport. Little kids in villages would yell Jinetera! Jinetera!!! at our car when they saw my wife. LOL Cuban jargon for "comfort girl".
LOL
Last edited by beaverpeeler; 05/07/26 04:49 PM.
